Sometimes bizarre questions about the functioning of vigilance organizations are raised. Fundamental job of vigilance organization is to forestall attempts of corruption, bribery and violation of rules. The issue of putting an end to corrupt practices and bribery in administrative structure came up before the civil society with a big bang when cases of huge corruption at the level of Central administration were made public. The 2 G scam, Adarsh scam, Coalgate and many other scams stirred the conscience of civil society and even a movement against corruption led by Anna Hazare stole the march when hundreds of thousands of well meaning civilians joined his movement. It gained such momentum at one point of time that people thought it was going to decide the fate of the country. But thanks to selfish political leadership and political parties with vested interests, they did not allow the movement take its logical course and thus bring about a much needed change in the society. The self interested regime created so many legal and technical hurdles in the way of a mechanism that promised to control corruption. The Anna Hazare movement fizzled out and the Government was free to let the corrupt ministers, high ups and Government functionaries enjoy the fruits of their perfidy.
Our State Government at one stage claimed that it did not need to appoint Lokayukta because, as it said, it had a foolproof mechanism to take care of cases of corruption and bribery. We felt that the Government really meant business. But then it dawned upon the people of the State that not to speak of any foolproof mechanism of controlling corruption in the administration of the state, even the organizations that are supposed to be the watchdog over administration are left without providing them the requisite infrastructure. The SVC had to struggle quite hard to obtain space and infrastructure which however is not to capacity even now. The impact of two Central organizations under spotlight, namely the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and Central Information Commission (CIC) going headless for a long time will be only adverse in the States including our State.
CVC is headed by a Central Vigilance Commissioner and is assisted by two Vigilance Commissioners. Their appointment is made by the President under a given procedure. The Chief of the CVC demitted office on 28th of September. One of the two Vigilance Commissioners completed his tenure on 7 September leaving only one Vigilance Commissioner in place who is temporarily heading the organization as per the Act. But it is only a temporary arrangement and the regular Central Vigilance Commissioner is yet to be appointed. The situation is piquant. There is a case pending with the Supreme Court in regard to transparency in the appointment of Chief Vigilance Commissioner and Vigilance Commissioners. Naturally appointment of a regular Chief Vigilance Commissioner cannot be made until the court decides the pending case. Therefore the organization will have to carry on with temporary arrangement which in no case is good governance and conducive to the nature of work which the organization is supposed to do. The Attorney General has assured the Supreme Court that no final decision will be taken in regard to appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner and Commissioners.
A country as big as India and with so many problems and issues coming up for the consideration and decision of the Government cannot be left with its prime organizations without a chief. The Central Government must find out a viable mechanism that will assist in making a selection and appointing a right person to head these two important institutions. Actually a decision on who would be the next incumbent should have been taken long before the incumbent demitted his office or completed his term. The matter should not have been left to indefinite decision as this sends a wrong signal to the functionaries.
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